Disclaimer: Not
mine. No money being made here…. Just
having fun!
Warnings/Notes: Spoilers for S2 and TsbyBS. Sequel to Wages of Sin. This will make no sense at all if you don’t
read that one first. Crossover with my
original characters. Rated somewhere
between PG-13 and R for violence and language.
Thanks to my wonderful
betas, Susn, Lorri, Catherin, and Debbie.
And to everyone who reads my stories and encourages me to keep writing!
Jesse
Riviera stared at the wall across from him.
He hated waiting. Mainly because
waiting gave a person too much time to think.
He listened to the intercom system page yet another doctor to the ER and
thought about everything that had happened.
Kit had left him behind when he took Blair to see Jim Ellison and Jess
still wanted to strangle him for it.
Blair had been so angry when he—when he what? He did not even know what to call it, but Blair had been in a
catatonic state since they had rescued him from the military compound where he
and Jim Ellison had been held. Then he
was just "back" and pissed off.
Jesse had had to get a damn cab, and by the time he got there, it was all
over. Not that he would have wanted to
witness what Kit had described to him.
He would have just liked to have been there to support his friend. He had gotten there just in time to see
Blair come out of 852 Prospect and collapse on the sidewalk. Pete and Kit were right behind him, and it
was decided that maybe Blair needed to get checked out by a doctor. Blair had a different opinion, but Pete
overruled him. They had come to a
compromise when Blair said that he would see his doctor and no one else. So now, they waited. Kit was pacing, and Pete was on the pay
phone. Jess had no idea who he was
talking to, but his boss looked concerned.
Dr.
Orenda Milap frowned as she examined her patient. "Well," she said finally, "you're malnourished and
suffering from exhaustion. You look
like you've been through a meat grinder, but your x-rays are fine, and I don't
see any sign of internal injury. There
are several drugs in your system, one of which I can't identify, which are
probably adding to the feelings of fatigue you're experiencing. When they get out of your system, you should
feel a little better." She shook
her head. "What am I going to do
with you, Blair? Sweetpea, you need to
find a less dangerous line of work."
Blair
gave her a sad smile then lowered his eyes to the floor once more.
"Want
to tell me why Jim's not with you and who those people are out there in the
waiting room?"
"Not
really, Orenda. They're friends,
though. I don't feel like talking about
it."
Orenda
sighed. "Okay. Well, you're going to be sore from the
bruises. I want you go home and—" She did not miss the wince at the word
home. "And sleep, a lot. And eat.
You've lost a lot of weight. You
were thin to start with. Now you look
like one of those starving girls we see in magazines and on fashion
runways. Look at me." He did not raise his head. "Blair Sandburg, look at me." He did.
"I don't know what's happened because you won't tell me, but I do
know that it had to be pretty traumatic.
That man out there, the slick one, he gives me some pathetic story about
line of duty, and I saw the press conference, but I know a smoke screen when I
see one. The fact that Jim is not here
and you don't want him here worries me."
"I'm
okay, Orenda. Thanks for coming in to
check on me. Sorry I called you at
home."
She
rolled her eyes. "Trying to change
the subject? Okay, I'll leave it
alone. But I need to see you in a
week."
"I
won't be here in a week, Orenda."
"And
just where will you be?" Orenda
placed her hands on her hips and gave him her best withering gaze.
"Probably
D.C. I've taken a new job with the guy
out there, the one you called the slick one." There was almost a smile on Blair's face.
"Oh
dear."
"I'll
be okay."
"You'd
better be. I think I need to have a
talk with that young man before you leave here with him."
Her
young patient did smile then. "I
promise to be careful."
"Yes,
you always do promise to be careful and then you end up right back here mere
weeks later. Blair, who is that
man?"
"He's
a friend, Orenda, I swear."
"You
wait here," she ordered. She
stalked out of the exam room, and she could hear him calling her name, but she
ignored him. She walked out to the
waiting room and headed straight for the men that had come in with Blair. They all stood.
"How's
Blair?" one of them asked.
"He'll
be all right with a lot of rest and some good food. Now, I have a few questions.
Who are you?"
The
slick one smiled at her and offered his hand.
"I'm Peter Devereaux. This
is Kit Chase and Jesse Riviera."
He indicated the two men with him in turn. Orenda did not accept his hand.
He simply raised it to his short dark hair and ruffled it, blushing a
little as he did.
"Orenda
is an Indian name, right?"
Orenda
turned to glower at Kit Chase.
"Yes. It is."
He
smiled at her and she gave him the same look that she gave Blair whenever he
tried a little misdirection to placate her.
He had the grace to look properly scolded. "Thought so."
"Look,
Blair is a favorite patient of mine. I
understand that he is leaving town with you.
Just what is this new job he's taking with you?"
"We're
a private investigation and security consultation firm in D.C. Blair is going to be our new—" the man
paused, "researcher."
"Right." She narrowed her eyes at him. She was not as stupid as he obviously
thought she was. Not by a long shot.
"I
can give you one of our cards." He
started digging in his coat pocket.
"No,
that's quite all right." She
turned back to Kit Chase. "You
take care of him."
He
blinked, but then nodded. "Yes,
ma'am."
"Fine. I'll go sign his release." She was still not happy, but it was out of
her hands.
"What
was that about?" Pete asked Kit when the tiny doctor was gone.
"She's
a medicine woman."
"Kinda
got that, Kit. Doctor being the title
in front of her name and all."
"Stop
being dense, Pete. You know what I'm
talking about."
"Great,
you're getting weird again."
Kit
only laughed at him.
Fifteen
minutes later, they were leaving the hospital.
Blair was silent as they drove to the airport. Pete tried several times to engage him in conversation, but he
would only nod or shake his head.
Finally, after a signal from Kit to give up, he stopped and concentrated
on his driving. Once at the airport,
Pete turned in the rental car and picked up the tickets he had purchased while
waiting for Blair at the hospital. Now,
they only had to relax in one of the airport's many little restaurants and wait
for their boarding call. They sat down
and a waitress came over. Kit ordered
vegetable plates for himself and Blair, who did not seem inclined to talk to
anyone. Jesse ordered a cheeseburger
and Pete ordered a double vodka straight up.
Kit gave him a sharp look, which he promptly ignored. He needed that vodka. He had a lot of thinking to do.
He
did not regret offering Blair a job. He
had no doubt that the man would be an asset to his company once he had some
time to recover physically and emotionally from everything that had happened to
him, but he wondered if Blair would be happy in his new job. He took in the sad, sullen man across the
table from him and sighed.
Then
there was the problem of Jim Ellison.
Jim was a mess. Pete felt
partially responsible. After all, Jim's
best friend was leaving town with him rather than trying to salvage their
friendship. Yet, he still did not
regret the job offer. Okay, that one
was going in circles. Moving on to his
next problem.
Last
but certainly not least, the more Pete thought about everything that had
happened, the more convinced he was that their problems were not over. Ron MacNamara was not the suicidal type. The man had been afraid. He had told Pete that he was not at the top
of the ladder. Ron had said that
someone else was calling the shots and Pete had seen fear in his eyes. He had ignored that fear at the time. Ron was a coward in his best moments after
all. But looking back, Pete had to
wonder if he had dismissed it too quickly.
Thing was, he now knew that the Pentagon and the CIA were unaware of
some key points of the whole mess. All
of that added up to a third party involved, which meant anyone from a foreign
government to any number of terrorist groups.
He had called Banks while they waited in the hospital and told the man
of his suspicions. Banks assured him he
would pass the information on to Jim.
In the meantime, they were all in danger and they had no idea from who
or where. Yes, he needed that
vodka. In fact, he might need the whole
bottle.
There
were too many people, way too many people and not enough air. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his
breathing. Someone touched him and
something hit the table in front of him.
He jumped and his eyes flew open.
The waitress had already moved away.
He looked down at the vegetable plate she had plopped in front of him
and suddenly felt very ill.
"Bathroom,"
he choked out before he stumbled away from the table. There were too many people in his way! He shoved his way through them despite the fact that they seemed
to try to keep him from his destination.
He slid as he rounded the corner, slamming into the door of the men's
room and nearly falling through it. He
barely made it to the stall before the gagging started. Unfortunately, there was not much on his
stomach to vomit and he spent several agonizing minutes gagging and choking on
the dry heaves. He fell back onto the
cold tile and a wet towel appeared in front of his face. He looked up to see the shaman standing over
him. Kit was his name, he had
learned. Blair tried to smile, but he
knew his attempt was not very successful.
Kit knelt beside him and grasped his shoulder. "Sorry," Blair whispered.
Kit
shook his head. "No reason to
be. Okay now?"
"I
think so."
The
man stood and offered Blair a hand. He
accepted it and let Kit do most of the work to pull him up. It was then that he caught a glimpse of
himself in the mirrors. He let go of
Kit's hand and moved toward his reflection.
One hand rose of its own accord to touch what was left of his hair. It was stupid. He had known that the hair was gone. He could tell, after all.
This was the first time he had really had to look at it though. His chest hurt as he grasped one short curl
and pulled it out straight to look at the length. The man in the mirror looked as if he was about to cry, but Blair
ordered him not to; it was only hair.
Do not be so stupid, he ordered.
It does not matter, he told the stranger reflected back at him through
the glass. He almost had his reflection
convinced when Kit spoke.
"I'm
sorry I wasn't there to stop them."
He
was shaking suddenly and his knees felt weak.
"Damn it! Just hair, damn
it! It doesn't matter!" But his face was wet. "It's not important! It's over!
All over! Get over it!" he
screamed at the man in the mirror. But
the man in the mirror was not listening.
He had to make him listen. He
would make him listen. Then there was
glass everywhere and he was on the floor with Kit practically wrapped around
him.
"Let
it go," the man whispered. "I
know it hurts, but you have to let it go, Blair. You can't move on until you do.
You've faced it. Now, you have
to let it go."
"Everything
okay?" Pete was in the doorway and
Blair tried to turn his head away. His
new boss was going to fire him for being nuts if he did not manage to pull himself
together. Then where would he go?
Kit
answered for him. "He's okay. Mirror's seen better days, but Blair will be
just fine."
"Then
I'll just find somebody and pay for the mirror." Pete disappeared.
"Great. I'm sorry.
Bet he's rethinking that job offer."
Kit
laughed. "Nah, it's okay. He's used to it. Hell, he's made a few messes of his own from time to time."
"What
is wrong with me?!" Now he was
whining, and he hated that.
"You're
just having a run of really bad days.
It'll get better."
"It's
over with Jim. God, that hurts, just to
say it, you know? He was my best
friend! The best friend I ever
had. Man, what does that say about my
life?"
Kit
finally let him go. "You can't
dwell on that." Once again, Kit
helped him up.
"I
miss him already. Is that crazy?"
"No."
"But
I can't go back. I can't. Not now."
"Maybe
later?"
"No. How could I ever trust him again?"
"That's
a question only you can answer."
"I
know."
"Can
you eat something now?"
Blair
shrugged. "Maybe." Kit motioned for him to lead the way out of
the bathroom. He was nearly knocked
down by a frantic man as he opened the door, however.
"Sir! Are you all right? I am so sorry about the state of the bathroom. I can assure you that we do try to maintain
a safe environment. I can not apologize
enough for your accident."
Blair
was confused. He looked back at Kit who
was barely containing his laughter, then looked past the strange man to see
Pete put a finger to his lips as a sign for him to go along with the
story. Blair glared at him. Oddly enough, Peter Devereaux managed to
look both pleased with himself and sheepishly guilty at the same time.
"I'm
fine, sir. Don't worry about it."
"Are
you sure there's nothing I can get for you?
An ice pack? Do you need to see
a doctor?"
"I'm
fine, really. Accidents happen,"
Blair told him.
"If
you're sure?"
"Absolutely."
The
man looked visibly relieved.
"Again, sir, I'm very sorry.
I will have someone in here immediately to clean this room." He hurried away then.
"Let
me guess. You didn't have to pay for
that mirror," Kit accused.
"Hey,
I offered!"
"Yes,
I'm sure you did." Kit shook his head.
"That
was so wrong." Blair frowned.
"Great,
I've hired myself yet another conscience," Pete moaned as he gently pulled
Blair out of the bathroom by his jacket.
"Let's go, Dudley Do-Right.
Let's eat and get the hell out of Dodge."
"Just
how many drinks did you have while we were gone, Pete?" Kit asked as they
made their way back to the table.
"A
few, Mom."
Blair
almost smiled but just as the corners of his mouth started to give in to the
impulse, a stray thought chased it away.
He had walked away from his sentinel.
What would Jim do now?
"Dr.
Rose, I must say that I am sorely disappointed in your lack of
progress." Robert listened to the
man on the other end of the phone line.
"Mr.
Baker, I assure you that I am doing my best for your organization here, but I
am without a true guide for Alex."
"And
the Jew is your only choice? Surely,
you can come up with someone else."
"I
hate to tell you this, but Blair Sandburg is the only true, natural guide that
I am aware of. We have covered this
before. I realize where your
organization stands regarding minorities, but if you want a fully functional
sentinel then we need Sandburg. At
least until we are able to identify other guides."
"Then
go find him. I don't care how, but you
get Barnes operational. Or get me
Ellison. At least he's not some wild
nutcase."
"I
would still need Sandburg." Robert
rubbed his forehead. Why had he gotten
involved with this man and his militant organization? Oh yes, money, a lot of money.
Still, it hardly seemed worth the risk and aggravation now as he tried
to make the man look past his prejudices to accept what was necessary.
"Then
do it, man, before I decide that you've become a liability and find someone who
can get me results. Need I remind you
what happened to our friend, Ron?"
"No,
sir." One step forward, two steps
back, Rose thought to himself. He had
finally gotten through to the man, on one hand. On the other hand, the man was threatening to kill him. Or rather have him killed. He would never do his own dirty work.
"How
is the other part of our venture going?"
"I
can report some progress there, Mr. Baker." For all the good it would do in the short run. Right now, he needed a guide.
"Good. If this works, Rose, the Freedom Coalition
will have the means to secure a better future for all real Americans. You have to do whatever is necessary to make
sure it works."
"Yes,
sir, I understand. I just have to find
Blair Sandburg. He has apparently left
Cascade."
"Find
Ellison. Take him and Sandburg will
come to you, right? They are friends,
are they not?"
"They
were, Mr. Baker, but in our attempt to separate Sandburg from Ellison, we may
have destroyed that."
"You
are giving me excuses, Rose. I hate
excuses." The man hung up on him.
Robert
sighed. "Fanatic," he
muttered. He did not happen to share
the views of the Freedom Coalition, but Baker had been willing to fund his
research. All of his research. The discovery of Alex Barnes had changed
everything, as far as Robert was concerned.
They could have more than one sentinel to study. With two sentinels, one male and one female,
there was the potential to breed more sentinels. With all that Blair Sandburg had learned, they could find or
create more guides. Holloway had been
Max's idea, the old man still believing that the Army would be the sole
benefactor of their work, but that had played right into Robert's hands. Sandburg would be needed to salvage
Barnes.
Yet,
when he presented his ideas, his government had been less than receptive. They refused to sanction Robert's
acquisition of Barnes and had wanted to pull the plug on the entire operation,
but MacNamara had made arrangements for him to continue his work. Robert was thankful for those select few
that had things they had to hide and yet strings that they could pull. He should have asked why MacNamara was so
willing to help, but at the time, he had not cared. Ron then brought in the Freedom Coalition and Baker's money to fund
what the government would not. Still,
he had not cared. Senile Max Adler and
the very soldiers that guarded Robert's research were none the wiser to the
real work that was going on. He had
free reign and all the money he could want.
At one time, that had been enough.
Now, he was not so sure. After
all, he could make more money if he could manage to get rid of the Freedom
Coalition and go freelance with Alex once Sandburg got her functioning
again. That had been one of his
original desires. Problem was, he was
firmly in the grasp of Baker and the Coalition, and Baker would kill him before
he would let Robert walk away. He
rubbed his aching temples and sighed.
It would be complicated, but he would find a way.
One
week later
"Are
you sure you want to do this?"
Pete asked his newest employee.
Blair
Sandburg did not look at his face.
Instead, his focus was on the files that Pete held in his hands. "I'm sure. I want to know everything.
I need to know, Pete."
Pete
nodded. "Can I show you something
else first?"
Blair
rolled his eyes at him. "Do you
have to?"
"I'd
like to."
"Fine." It was more a sigh than a word. "What is it?"
"Okay,
I've been waiting to tell you this until I thought you could deal with it. Now, I suppose since you're ready to deal
with this stuff." He indicated the
files he held. "Maybe you're ready
for what I have to say." He took a
deep breath. "All right, here
goes. Before MacNamara died, I cut a
deal with him for my silence. He gave
me a substantial sum of money to keep my mouth shut about his part in your
abduction."
"What?" Blair looked appalled, and Pete started
wishing he had waited for Kit to get back into the office before he started
this. Kit had a knack for smoothing
ruffled feathers, and Pete had a feeling he was about to ruffle lots and lots
of Blair's feathers.
He
reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the bankbook. He handed it to Blair. "It was when we thought you might need
at least semi-permanent care. I took it
for you, Blair. Then when Senator Adams
heard what had happened—"
"Your
version, you mean?"
"Yes,
my version. He felt you deserved some
compensation for your ordeal."
Blair
was staring at the book, but he had not opened it. He shook his head suddenly and held the book out to Pete. "I can't take it. It's not right."
"The
hell it's not!" Pete exclaimed.
"You listen to me, Blair Sandburg.
You deserve every dime of that money and more after what they did to
you."
"It's
blood money, sort of. You know what I'm
saying?" He threw the book on the
table when Pete did not take it.
"Yeah,
and it was your blood, so it's your money!
Take it, Blair. Pay off your
student loans. Use it to get your
doctorate. Blow it on fast women and
good wine. Who cares! Just take it. And there is one other thing.
I spoke to Senator Adams and he is more than willing to write you a
recommendation to Georgetown University.
Think about it. You could get
your doctorate from Georgetown.
Wouldn't that just tweak the nose of the good Chancellor Edwards of
Rainier? Blair, I know that you say you
want to work here, but why?"
"What
do you mean why?"
"Why
do you want to work here? You want my
theory?"
"Not
really."
"Tough. I'm the boss. I get to spew my theories any time I want. I think that you're here because you don't
know where else to be. Blair, this job
is not that different from being a cop and I don't think that would have been
your first choice of careers either. In
fact, our work is even more violent.
You'll still have to carry a gun and know how to use it. You don't want that. I've let this slide for a while because
you've been learning the office and the computer systems, but it's time to move
on from that. I'm trying to give you
options, Blair. You can have your doctorate. You can be an anthropologist again. Or you can be a man of leisure. Trust me, there's enough there to relax on
for quite some time. Or you can learn
the trade here and work for me. I just
want the choice to be yours, freely, without reservation."
Blair
sighed then gave him a half-smile. He
reached for the book and opened it hesitantly.
"Holy shit!"
Pete
laughed. "Dinner's on you tonight,
right?"
"Funny. I can’t believe you did this."
"Well,
somebody had to do something. So, are
you pissed?"
"Not
exactly. Georgetown?"
"Yep,
Georgetown. I even think that I can
speed things up for you—"
"No,
thanks, but that's fine. You've done
enough already."
"How
come you, Kit and Alex can all make that sound like an insult rather than a
compliment?" Pete grinned at him.
"It's
a gift. Now, give me the files."
"Don't
mince words, do you?"
"What
would be the purpose of that? Hand them
over, Pete. I'm not going to give up on
this."
Pete
placed the files down on the table in front of Blair. "It's ugly. I hope
you're prepared for it. I'll leave you
alone for a while. If you need me, I'll
be in my office."
Blair
nodded, never taking his eyes off the folders.
Pete sighed and left him to it.
Three
hours later, Blair closed the file that Alex Morrow had stolen from MacNamara's
office and sat back in the chair. He
was not sure whether he wanted to cry, scream or laugh. He scooped both folders up from the table and
headed across the office lobby to Pete's door.
He knocked lightly then opened the door. He peeked in.
"Come
on in, Blair," Pete said, a thoughtful look on his face.
"I'm
finished with these." He told him as he entered the office and walked over
to Pete's desk to place them on one corner.
"And? Are you okay?"
"I
don’t know. I'm not sure. It's all so confusing. You know, Rose said I was handpicked. They had a profile and all that. At least that what he told me, but Pete,
there is no profile. Not really. There's nothing in there that wouldn't apply
to hundreds, thousands of people. They
wanted someone in the fields of Social Science, so he could understand the
research. They wanted someone young, so
the person could be trained rather than retrained. They wanted someone of above average to genius level
intelligence. The only reason it ended
up being me was because I read Burton's research and was interested in the
concept, and I just happened to live in the same town as Jim, which is pretty
coincidental when you think about it. Why
would he want me to believe that I was handpicked from some 'special'
profile? It hardly seems important at
all. Wait, yes it does. It was important that we believed that I was
the one, possibly the only one, that fit.
It would obligate me. It would
obligate Jim. It would make me believe that I had to help because no one else
could, and it would make Jim feel responsible for me."
Pete
was nodding. "Smart."
"Evil. That's what it is. But Adler hated me and didn't want me. Guess Rose didn't plan on that.
Or hell, maybe he did. Maybe once
he found out about Alex, he intended for me to work with her and that other guy
to work with Jim."
"I
don't think Rose cared what happened to Jim, Blair. He said that Adler and the Army could have Jim. He was more interested in getting Barnes
ready for MacNamara and whoever was backing him," Pete explained.
Blair
frowned. "And my grants and
scholarships, over half of them came from Rose apparently. That really sucks."
"Sorry."
So
was Blair, but that was not what had hurt the most. "Did you know Jim was planning on leaving? There's a plane ticket in there." He pointed to the folder.
"It's
not what it looks like. Jim had two
safety deposit boxes, one for him and one for you. They found his. They
didn't find yours. He had separate ones
in case they got to him before they got to you. You could still get away."
"Then
he didn't—he wasn't going to leave me behind?
Oh god, I was blaming him for it all.
But he didn't know about me, did he?
The file isn't clear on that, but he really didn't know." Blair was stunned. He had thought that Jim knew about the whole thing, that when his
repressed memories came back, he had known that Blair had been chosen to be his
guide.
"No,
Blair, he didn't."
"But
he knew they were coming at some point, and he didn't tell me. He should have told me!" He knew he was practically shouting.
"I
agree."
Blair
held up his hands and took a deep breath.
"I'm not going to get into that now. I'm putting that to the side right now."
"Okay." There was a slight chuckle in Pete's
voice. Blair glared at him. "Sorry," Pete said hurriedly. "It's just that you sounded like Kit
just then."
Blair
forgave him and shrugged before continuing.
"And MacNamara. That file
is even worse! A sentinel breeding
program! The guy was a monster."
"Blair,
Rose was working for MacNamara. They
were in this together. It's just that
Rose's file is the cleaned-up for Adler's and the company's use version. I have no doubt in my mind that Rose is
going to use Alex Barnes to make him some little sentinels if he figures out a
way. I also know that if he manages to
fix her senses and tighten the loose screws in her head, he'll use her skills
on the black market."
"That's
sick."
"Well,
that's the lay of the land, my friend."
"We
have to stop him."
"Yeah,
I think we do. I have some folks poking
around for information on Rose but so far, no luck. I'll let you know when I have something."
"Wait,
you said something else. You said,
Adler's and the company's use version.
I thought the CIA was responsible."
"To
a point. But Blair, even the CIA would
think twice before setting up a human breeding camp. Senator Adams told me that they seemed a little too stunned when
he confronted them with that file. The
old man is annoying as hell, but one reason he is so annoying is because he's a
good judge of character. He says the
CIA higher-ups were unaware of that particular part of Ron's little scheme at
least. They knew about Jim and the
project and ended up admitting to its questionable legality, but not the
breeding thing. They even seemed to
think that you came along willingly.
They didn't seem to know that you were taken against your will. And the Pentagon was even more unaware of
what was going on. Adler was crazy, a
loose cannon. He'd lost it and Rose
took advantage of it. I think Rose and
MacNamara were working for somebody else.
It's the only thing that makes sense.
Ron was free and clear with me.
I wasn't going to hand him over to Adams because he agreed to help
me. So, the way I figure it, he was
either too scared of his employers to give them a shot at him and offed himself
or they offed him for caving to me and made it look like suicide. Ron thought a little too highly of himself to
commit suicide just because I kicked his ass at his own game. No, Ron would have come after me and got his
revenge or at least tried to. We are
not out of the woods yet, Blair."
Blair
gathered up the files again and got up.
"Where
are you going?" Pete asked him.
"To
go through these one more time. There's
got to be something in here that will give them away. Some little detail not hidden just right or something. My first time through these, I was too busy
being mad and—well, hurt to be objective.
This time, I'm going to find what they were hiding and then we are going
to nail Rose's ass to the wall."
He turned and left then, vaguely aware of Pete's incredulous eyes and
slack jaw as the man stared at him.
Simon
Banks stood at his window, the one that looked out over the bullpen, and watched
Jim Ellison. Jim had returned to work
that morning. Simon had tried to
dissuade him, but he was determined. So
far, he had shifted papers and files from one corner of his desk to the other
several times, stared at his computer, taken a few calls and just generally
looked lost. Simon sighed. He looked down at the file in his hand. While it was true that he had wanted Jim to
take a little more time for himself before he returned to work, he had finally
determined that Jim needed something to do if he was going to be on duty. It would, at least, occupy his mind. Slapping the file against his leg, he made
up his mind. He strode out of his
office, motioning to Joel Taggert as he made his way to Jim's desk. "Jim, I have case for you. Joel will be riding with you on this. There's been a series of robberies, all high
tech stuff. A security officer was
killed during the last one so it was kicked to us this morning. I need you to head over to Watson Technology
and see what you can find out."
"Sure,
Captain." He stood and reached for the file.
"Jim,
are you sure you're ready?" Simon touched his arm.
"Yeah. I need to do something, sir."
Simon
nodded and relinquished the folder in his hand. Joel was waiting quietly near the door to Simon's right. Simon nodded to him and Joel returned the
nod with a small smile. Jim grabbed his
coat and followed Joel out of the door of the bullpen, leaving his captain and
friend to wonder if he was doing the right thing. In the meantime, there was something he wanted to do. Something that he had wanted to do for a
week. He turned and walked back into
his office and picked up the phone. He
dialed the number and waited for someone at The Devereaux Agency to answer the
phone.
Fifteen
minutes later, he hung up the phone and sat back in his desk chair. Despite
Devereaux's news that he was certain that there was a dangerous third party
still out there to be dealt with, he had been somewhat encouraged by
Devereaux's other news. Blair was doing
well, and he was thinking. Devereaux
had told him that Blair had gone through both Rose's and MacNamara's files and
realized that Jim had not set him up.
Simon could only hope that this was the first step toward Blair
forgiving Jim and coming home. Yes, Jim
had made a mistake or two, but, much to Simon's relief, he had not
intentionally hurt Sandburg.
Perhaps
Blair only needed a little push.
Simon's eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed in thought. Perhaps if Blair could be reminded that he
had other friends in Cascade willing to help him, he would come on home and try
to work things out with Jim. He picked
up the phone once again. This time,
when he hung up, he had reservations on a flight to Washington, D.C. in the
morning, if one could call 4:40am morning.
He had stayed out of this quite long enough. Blair was his friend and so was Jim. Neither of them could be happy with the way things had
ended. Jim felt as if he did not have
the right to search out Blair, so be it.
Simon, however, figured that he had every right. After all, he cared for the kid, and he
wanted his friend back. That was right
enough for Simon.
Alex
Morrow yawned as he walked into the office.
It was getting quite late and he had spent the entire day trying to hunt
down information on Ron MacNamara's activities over the last several
months. He ran one hand through his
dark hair. Perhaps it was time for a
haircut. He had been wearing it a bit
long lately but it was nearly touching his shoulders now. That was a bit much. Soon, he would look like Jesse and Kit. Well, not like Kit. The man wore his hair almost all the way
down his back. Alex shook his head and
smiled to himself.
He
was just about to knock on his boss's door when he noticed Blair Sandburg in
one of the other rooms. Sandburg seemed
completely engrossed in what he was reading.
Alex had met the younger man when he had picked up his co-workers and
boss at the airport. Alex saw in Blair
Sandburg the same sadness and confusion that he had seen in Jim Ellison when he
was here. Yet, Sandburg was not content
to sit back and let others deal with the problems. He was like a man obsessed.
He had learned the computer system in less than a day. He had absorbed every word that Pete had
said, learned every aspect of the mundane operations of the agency in only a
few days. Then something strange
happened.
Pete
started stalling. Sandburg should have
been turned over to one of the field operatives for training. He had even volunteered to take Sandburg on. Pete had looked horrified. Alex would have been insulted had he not
known that Sandburg had a phobia of guns.
He realized that Pete was worried that maybe Alex's brand of training
would have been a little overwhelming.
But that did not explain why Pete was still dancing around the
subject. Both Jesse and Kit had offered
to train him as well. Jesse would
probably be perfect in Alex's opinion.
Sandburg seemed to pick up the computer system so fast, after all. At any rate, Sandburg was still puttering
around the office most of the day, offering to do this or that for whomever was
present, only to have Pete give him some trivial task.
Now
though, Sandburg seemed very intense and focused on what he was looking at, and
Alex could not help but wonder what had him so enthralled. He redirected his steps to the small
conference room where the younger man sat.
"Hello," he greeted as he entered.
Sandburg
jumped a little and jerked his eyes up to Alex's. "Oh, hi Alex."
"I
didn't mean to startle you."
"That's
okay. I wasn't paying attention."
"I
could see that. What are you looking at
so hard?"
"The
files about—well, Jim and me. And Alex
Barnes, too. I'm trying to find some
clue to where Rose might have gone and who might have been backing him besides
the CIA and the Pentagon. I mean, we
have already determined that the vast majority of the Pentagon was oblivious,
right?"
"Right."
"And
we now know that the CIA was not aware of the breeding program."
"So
they say."
"You
think otherwise?"
Alex
shrugged as he pulled out a chair and sat down across from Sandburg. "I don't know. I don’t put anything past governments
anymore." He leaned forward and
reached for one of the files. "May I?"
"Sure,
I could use all the help I could get.
Anyway, Pete thinks that they didn't know so he thinks that there's a
third player and that that third player may be sheltering Rose and Barnes
now."
"Okay,
then let's see what we can find."
Two
hours later, Sandburg shoved the open file away and put his head down on the
table. "There's nothing. How can there be nothing?"
Alex
sighed and closed the file in front of him.
"Maybe we aren't looking in the right places. We've poured over every piece of paper in
here."
"I
guess I should have realized that they wouldn't have been careless enough to
leave clues in here. I mean, even
MacNamara never mentions a name and this was his personal file!" Blair sat
up and Alex saw anguish in the blue eyes that begged him silently to find some
answer somewhere.
"Well,
Pete thinks he was pretty scared of his employer. He wouldn't finger them even on the threat of taking the fall
himself when Pete confronted him. He
would make sure that his written records wouldn't give them away either. Okay, perhaps we were asking too much to
expect a name or blatant reference.
What if the reference is there but not in a form we can see? We need Jesse." Alex reached for the phone.
Sandburg
stopped him before he could lift the receiver.
"Alex, it's after midnight.
Even Pete's gone home. I guess
it can wait until morning. Let's go
home. Kit is probably getting worried
about me by now."
"I
doubt it. Kit's probably not home
himself yet. Pete sent him to Baltimore
to check out Rose's last employer. He
didn't tell you?"
"I
didn't get to see him today. Who was Rose's
last employer?"
"Well,
I use employer for lack of a better word.
Let's just say that he was getting quite a bit of money from these
people for what his income tax records called contracted independent research. Someplace called Millennium Research
Foundation. And if it didn't seem fishy
enough, we are having a hell of a time trying to track down the actual
owner. Even Jesse couldn't find a clear
trail, so Pete sent Kit to snoop around.
And Jess is still trying to get into their computer system. It's closed up tight, though."
"Millennium
Research? Where have I heard that
before? Wait!" He grabbed the discarded file and began to
frantically search through it. He
snatched up one sheet of paper and waved it at Alex. "Here it is! I got a
grant from them, two actually. This may
be it, Alex. It's gotta be it! Millennium Research."
"Good. Then maybe Kit will bring us something
back."
"Yeah,
maybe." Sandburg seemed to deflate
then.
"You're
tired. I'll drive you to Kit's."
"Thanks."
"No
problem, it's on the way."
"I
thought you lived out in the woods somewhere."
"I
do when I can. When I'm working, I have
an apartment here in the city. It's not
as secure as I'd like. It's a locked building and has alarms, but I'd rather
trust my own kind of security. Of
course, the other tenants wouldn't appreciate my idea of security very
much."
Sandburg
quirked an eyebrow at him but did not ask.
He just slipped his jacket on and followed Alex out of the office. They were in the elevator heading down to
the garage when Sandburg finally spoke again.
"Would
you teach me to handle a gun? I'm not
completely without experience. I have
fired a gun, you know. I just need to
get comfortable with it."
Alex
smiled and met his eyes frankly.
"I can't teach you comfort.
What I can teach you is skill.
Perhaps with skill will come comfort.
Are you sure you're ready?"
"Gotta
do it sometime. Besides, maybe if I
take the initiative, Pete will stop hovering over me like a mother
hen." There was almost a real
smile on his face.
Alex
laughed. "Pete is a mother
hen. He does that to us all from time
to time."
"Well,
he's as bad as J—never mind."
"I
met your Jim, you know?"
"He's
not my Jim," Sandburg muttered bitterly.
"You
know what I mean. Anyway, he seemed
like a fairly decent fellow. A little
slow on the uptake but not a bad sort."
"No,
he's not a bad sort."
"You
know, one of the drawbacks to being human is our enormous capacity for making
mistakes. Devastating mistakes,
sometimes. But one of our human virtues
is that most of us have the capacity for forgiveness. Some of us have more of a capacity than others. Me?
I'm still working on mine. What
about you?"
Sandburg
stared at him for a long moment before closing his eyes and swallowing hard. When he opened his eyes again, he shrugged a
little and said, "I guess I'm working on mine too."
"Good. As long as we are working on it, we are
making progress in our humanity, eh?"
"Yeah." The rest of the trip was made in silence.
Kit
checked the hallway for security guards.
Finding it empty, he rounded the corner and crept silently down the
hallway of the Millennium Research Foundation.
It had been ridiculously easy to find and disable their security
system. Simply snipping a few wires
disabled the alarms and the security cameras were scrambled. The guards were reduced to patrolling the
building while they tried to figure out what had happened to their video
feed. It would take them about fifteen
minutes to figure out that it was not a simple outage. It would take them another ten to fifteen
minutes to actually get enough manpower together to launch a thorough search,
so Kit figured he had about twenty to twenty five minutes to find something
that might incriminate or vindicate the Foundation in Rose's activities.
Even
as he was stalking the halls, Jess was back in Washington trying to hack into
the Foundation's computer system. So
far, he had had no luck. It was very
unusual for Jess to have a hard time getting into a computer system. Apparently, the Foundation had spent more on
computer security than on building security.
He picked a lock and slipped into an office, pulling out a small
flashlight from his back pocket and flipping it on as he closed the door. There was a desktop computer on the desk
before him. Maybe he could help Jesse
out. If he could find some sort of
password then Jesse could do the rest.
He quickly searched the desk and the unlocked files cabinets behind
it. Nothing. There were other locked cabinets by the window. He picked the lock on one of them and
searched through it. Just as he was
about to give up, he found a post-it note on the bottom of the last drawer. "Thank God for forgetful people,"
he whispered. He pulled out his cell
phone and dialed Jesse's number. He
then grabbed a file and started flipping through it. "Jesse, got a password.
Can't promise it'll get you far but all you need is a window,
right?" He frowned at the file he
held in his hand. "Cool. The word is 'violets.' Hey, Jess, I have this file in my hand about
some study dealing with the effects of ecstasy on the senses of human
subjects. I think we may be on the
right track here. Study's not here
though. It's in San Francisco. Means they have installations in other
places. I'll look for more here while
you try to get in. Good
luck." He hung up. He grabbed a few more files, holding his
flashlight in his mouth as he thumbed through them.
He
glanced at his watch. About ten minutes
left. There did not seem to be anything
in the files about Rose. There was
nothing else about research on human senses either. He put the files back and had just decided to try to get into
another office when his pager went off, vibrating against his side to let him
know he had a call. He grabbed it and
shined his light on the display. It was
Jesse and there was a 911 attached to the message. He clipped it back to his jeans and reached once again for the
phone. He called Jesse. "What?" he asked when Jess
answered. His best friend sounded frantic. He had to get out, right then. Forget it all, just get out. "Jesse, calm down. I have a few minutes left. Okay!
Okay, I'm going! You have some
explaining to do though."
He
sighed and tucked the phone away then swiftly made his way out of the office
and out of the building. When he was
off the grounds, he was calling Jesse back.
Obviously, Jess had gotten into the computer system and found something
bad. He wanted to know what.
The
phone was ringing. The fact snuck into
his sleep-fogged brain. Pete rolled
over and grabbed the phone.
"Yeah?"
"Pete,
we're fucked. They traced me. I don't even know how it happened but they
know it was me." Jesse's announcement cleared his mind instantly.
"Do
you know who they are?"
"Yeah
and it's bad. It's real bad."
"Tell
me."
"The
Freedom Coalition."
"Fuck! Get out of there! Where's Kit? Is he
out?" Pete practically fell out of
bed. The Freedom Coalition was a
paramilitary organization led by a very wealthy and very ruthless businessman
named George Baker. Pete had had a
run-in with Baker before. Baker had
wanted to hire the agency until he saw Kit.
The resulting confrontation ended with Pete throwing the man out of his
office and Kit threatening to kill the man if he ever saw him again. The last thing he needed was for Kit to come
face to face with Baker. As it was,
Baker's organization would be coming for them.
They needed to be elsewhere.
"Yeah. I just got off the phone with him. I didn't exactly tell him the truth, just
that I had been traced and that it was big trouble. He's on his way to Alex's cabin.
I suggest we join him. All of
us."
"Read
my mind. I'll call Maggie. She's wanted to go to Paris. Now would be a good time. I'll call Alex and Blair, too. Oh, shit!
And Jim. Why did it have to be
Baker!? Tell me you're out of your
apartment."
"Of
course! You think I'm stupid?"
"No!
Sorry. Meet you at Alex's cabin."
Pete
hung up the phone. Jesse was
right. It was bad. Pete's worst fear had come to pass. Baker's group was strong. What was more, they had Baker's money and
his contacts with several different governments and terrorist groups backing
them. Baker had clout.
Pete
grabbed the packed suitcase he kept for just this kind of situation out of the
closet and threw it on the bed. He
grabbed up the phone again and called Maggie even as he tossed his clothes
on. As he listened to Maggie's phone
ring, he let reality sink in. They
would have to take Baker down. They had
to find not just Rose and Barnes, but Baker as well. First they had to regroup, however. They could do that at Alex's.
The remote cabin was the safest option they had.
Jim
staggered into the loft. It was nearly
five in the morning. He just wanted to
collapse into bed. The stakeout, his
first since returning to duty, had been long and boring. By the end of it, he was questioning why he
had volunteered for the thing in the first place. Two steps into the loft and he remembered why. The emptiness of the place seemed to try to
swallow him up and make him just as empty.
He hated being here. He
sighed. A shower or bed, he asked
himself. The shower would feel good,
but his tired body convinced him that bed would feel better. He started for the stairs, but as he passed
the phone table, he noticed that the light was blinking on the answering
machine. Damn inconvenient things,
answering machines, but he pushed the button anyway.
"Jim,
it's Pete. Watch your back. We found out who was really backing
Rose. It's the Freedom Coalition. Sure you have heard of 'em. Bad news.
Thing is, they traced us when Jess hacked into their computer
system. We're going underground for a
bit. Don't worry about Blair. I'll take care of him. You just take care of you. We'll be in touch." The call disconnected and Jim found that he
was sitting on the bottom step leading to his bedroom. The Freedom Coalition. Yes, he had heard of them. At one time, there was a rumor that their
leader, George Baker, had tried to move in and absorb Kincaid's Sunrise Patriots
when Kincaid went down the second time, but the Patriots resisted. Several of them, the upper echelon of the
organization, went missing in Seattle shortly thereafter. No trace was ever found.
Jim's
first impulse was to go pack his bags and head to D.C., but he knew that Pete
and the others, including Blair, would be long gone before he got there. It took several minutes, but he finally
squelched the impulse and resigned himself to waiting for Pete's next
call. In the meantime, he had to trust
Pete Devereaux to take care of Blair.
That was not a good feeling. He
got up and headed up the stairs, though he doubted he would be getting any
sleep now.
It
was after five in the afternoon when Simon finally arrived in D.C. Time zones really sucked sometimes. He hailed a cab and gave the man the address
of The Devereaux Agency. Twenty minutes
later, the cab pulled to a stop. Up ahead,
Simon could see fire trucks and police.
"Is there a way around this?"
"But
sir, this is where you wanted to go.
That is the Markham building."
"The
one that's on fire?"
"Yes,
sir."
"Well,
that just damn figures." He pulled
a twenty and a five from his wallet and gave it to the man. He got out of the cab and headed for the
first person that seemed to have some authority. He had come this far. He
was not going home empty handed.
Kit
was staring at him again. Pete had
managed to avoid him since Kit had arrived at the cabin just after dawn. He feigned sleep for a while and then took
an extra long shower. By then, Kit had
fallen asleep, having traveled all night.
But now he was awake and sitting in Alex's living room, glaring at
him. Kit was pissed. That was the only word that appropriately
described the man. He had not taken the
news that Baker and the Freedom Coalition was behind this whole conspiracy
well. Pete almost chuckled, but stifled
it in time to keep his head on his shoulders.
Kit would no doubt take it off for him if he thought Pete found anything
at all amusing right now. Not taken it
well was the understatement of the year, however, so Pete was amused at his own
gentle phrasing. Pete glanced over his
shoulder at the two men in the kitchen making lunch. Alex would protect him, he hoped; Blair was a good
peacemaker. Well, it was time to brave
the wrath of Kit Chase.
"I
know you're angry with me," he said calmly.
"Angry
with you? Is that what you think? Angry with you? You have a gift for understatement."
Pete
did not quite stop the chuckle that time, and he instantly regretted it. Kit was on his feet and screaming before
Pete managed to straighten his face.
"What
the hell is so damn funny, Pete?! You
think this is funny?"
"No!"
Pete held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "This situation is not funny. It's just that I was just thinking about my gift for
understatement and then you said--- well, never mind. Kit, I'm sorry."
"You
should be. I was there. I could have found the bastard if you hadn't
pulled the plug."
"I
didn't pull the plug, exactly."
"You
didn't?"
"No,
Jess did. They had tracked him. He freaked.
He called me afterward."
"And
this is your solution? Hide in the
woods?"
"Just
to regroup. Besides, you have been
wanting to get Blair out of the city for whatever it is that you plan to teach
him so here we are, out of the city."
"I
want George Baker, Pete. I want to take
that bastard down."
"I
know. We will. We don't have a choice, really. It's him or us. And it's gonna be him."
"I
could have found him!" Kit spun and hit the wall behind him.
Pete
grimaced.
"Hey! I like that wall without holes, thank
you!" Alex scolded from the kitchen.
"No,
Kit, you could have gotten caught. Then
where would we be? Jess said you only
had a few minutes left before they would have started tracking you down. Be patient.
We will finish this."
Pete
watched as Kit closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again, he gave Pete
an apologetic smile and shrugged.
"I hate that guy."
"I
think the feeling's mutual, if that makes you feel better." Pete laughed when his comment got a real
smile out of his friend.
"Yeah,
it does actually."
Jesse
came storming into the cabin then.
"Damn it, Alex, why do you have to live out here in the
boonies? Pete, we aren't gonna get a
signal out here. The cell phones are
useless. I keep getting no service
messages, no matter how I try to boost the power."
"Now
you know why I never bother to bring my cell phone, don't you?" Alex handed him a sandwich.
"Okay,
that's not good." Pete frowned
then shook it off. "But here's
what we'll do. Let's take a few days
here. Regroup, get some plans together,
rest up, let Baker think he's got us on the run and then do whatever it is that
we come up with—to do."
"You
don't have a clue, do you?" Blair asked as he passed Pete a plate of
sandwiches.
"No! I have a clue. I just don't have a plan.
But I will." Pete took a
sandwich and passed the plate to Kit.
"I will," he repeated softly, more to convince himself than
the others.
Okay,
so he was wrong. He was leaving
empty-handed. Simon had spent the rest
of the day and well into the night trying to track down Peter Devereaux or
anyone associated with the Devereaux Agency.
They were just simply gone. He
was not even able to find a home address for any of the men he had met. The only good news he had gotten out of the
trip was that the firemen did not find any human remains in the burned out
office. But that did not mean that Blair
was not in trouble. In fact, it meant
that Blair was definitely in trouble, but what kind Simon did not know. He had left his card with the D.C. police
department and the investigator for the fire department with the request that
they notify him if they found out anything.
He
did not relish the thought of having to tell Jim what he had found. He boarded yet another red-eye flight that
would take him back to Cascade with a heavy heart. Jim was already an emotional wreck. Now, he had to tell the man that his estranged best friend was
missing and evidently, according to the investigator, there was foul play
involved.
Simon
sighed as he folded himself, rather uncomfortably, into the coach class
seat. Of course, he was not obtuse
enough to deny his own feelings of fear and loss. Simon had long ago admitted to himself that he cared for Blair
Sandburg. He admired the young man,
too. No matter what life threw at
Blair, he always seemed to land on his feet and managed to help a few others
along the way. Simon could only hope
that Blair was going to land on his feet this time too.
The
flight attendant was going over the emergency procedures, and though he had
heard the words many, many times before, he focused his troubled mind on what
she was saying so that maybe, just maybe, he could escape the feelings of doom
building up in his chest.
He
had lasted until lunch before he started searching for answers. He figured that for him that was probably a
record. Unfortunately, at nine o'clock,
Jim was still in the dark. He had
started with Pete's cell phone. The
recording informed him that the person he was trying to reach was not
available. He had left a message on the
voicemail, but he had not gotten or really expected a response. That would have been too easy. Then he had tracked down Chad Ryan, but the
FBI agent had not been able to tell him anything. Well, that was not true.
He had told Jim about the fire that had destroyed the offices of The
Devereaux Agency. The news nearly sent
Jim into a blind panic, but Ryan assured him that no one had died in the
fire. He had tried to get Pete's home
number out of the agent, but Ryan had laughed at him and asked if he really
thought Pete was at home waiting by the phone.
Jim shook his head. It had been
a stupid idea.
After
some thought, Jim had finally come to the conclusion that they had probably
headed for the hills quite literally.
Morrow's cabin. He remembered
that Morrow had a remote cabin in the mountains that supposedly was hard to
find and even harder to get to. There
was just one problem. No one had ever
mentioned what mountains the damn place was in.
Resigning
himself to the fact that he was not going to find Blair right now, he decided
to do some research on Baker and the Freedom Coalition. He spent several hours going through not
only Baker's own website, but also the information about Baker on other sites,
both pro-Baker and anti-Baker. He found
out little that was new. It seemed that
if one knew one hate group, one pretty much knew them all. The rhetoric was the same. However, there was something on the League
of Human Rights website that linked Baker with several prominent citizens,
including a Republican Representative and several powerful CEO's. Jim shook his head. He made some notes and sent an email to Chad
Ryan with the URL of the website. He
would have sent it to Pete, but he did not know when Pete would get it and
besides, knowing Pete, he probably already knew. He shut down the computer and sat back in his chair.
He
glanced in the direction of his captain's office. Simon had been a no-show, and Jim was a bit puzzled about
that. No one seemed to know where he
was. He wanted to talk to somebody, and
with Simon gone, and Blair gone, there was no one for Jim to talk to. Jim ran one hand over his face. Of course, it would probably come as a shock
to those who knew him best that he was actually willing to talk about his
worries. There was a time in his life
when he would not have even entertained the thought of talking about his
emotions with anyone. It was Blair's
fault that he was entertaining the thought now. He felt a brief moment of anger at that. How dare Blair make him open up his heart
and then leave him without a friend to open it to. But he squashed that anger.
It was his own fault. He had
driven his friend away.
He
had sat there long enough. He was not
accomplishing anything. It was time to
go home. Sitting there, sifting through
his head was just depressing him. Then
again, the empty loft was going to be just as depressing. Maybe he would go out for a drink. Or two.
Maybe he would just get sloppy drunk.
That was an idea. He would drown
those dark thoughts if it took him all night.
He grabbed his jacket and exited the bullpen. O'Malley's Bar would be the best place. O'Malley did not water his drinks.
It
was three in the morning when he finally stepped out of O'Malley's to wait for
the cab he had called. Or rather, that
the bartender had called for him. Jim
was drunk. Seriously, completely,
undeniably drunk. He had not gotten
this drunk since his early days in the military when he was still dumb enough
to think it was cool. Well, it was not
cool now, but it was comfortable. It
was numbing. His troubles seemed a
world away now. Blair would be furious
though if he knew that Jim had gotten this drunk without someone there to help
him with his senses if they got out of whack.
Wait, he thought. He had
forgotten for a moment. There were no
sentinel senses to get out of whack.
And no Blair to find out that he was drunk. Okay, maybe Jim was not as numb as he thought. There was some pain, right in the middle of
his chest.
Suddenly,
there was someone standing next to him.
He turned and looked into a familiar face. It took him a minute to place it, and by the time he did, it was
too late. A new pain blossomed in his
head, and he was falling.
The
sunrise was awe-inspiring from the front porch of Alex's remote cabin. Blair had been to the Smoky Mountains before
when he was a teenager. He had actually
fallen in love with a beautiful Cherokee girl named Cecilia Lone Tree. He shook his head. That romance had not turned out the way he wanted. He turned his thoughts back to the morning. In no time, he stood mesmerized by the
pastel rainbow horizon before him. The
air was crisp and scented with the clean smells of pine and morning dew. His eyes drifted closed and he listened to
the songs of the birds and the gentle rustling of leaves on the cool
breeze. It would be so easy to just let
go and let the grandness of nature take him away from his troubles, if only for
a while, but Kit would be out any minute now.
He had told Blair that they had work to do this morning. He opened his eyes again, and the sky was
already more blue and less rainbowed than it had been just moments before. The blue had seeped into the pinks and
yellows, completing the transformation from night to day.
"'So
dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay,'" he whispered solemnly.
"That's
Frost." Kit's voice startled him.
"Yeah,"
he said, turning to look at his new friend.
"I
like that one."
"Not
sure if I like it that much."
Blair shrugged. "I just
remember it. It's about the loss of
innocence, you know?"
"Yeah. I guess that's a sore subject right
now."
"What?"
"Loss
of innocence."
Blair
was aware of the bitterness that slipped into his laugh. "I'm hardly innocent. Naïve maybe. Not innocent."
"Still. It's a reminder."
"I
guess." He shrugged again. "Anyway I like The Road Not Taken much
better."
"It
fits you." Kit smiled at him.
He
smiled back. "I think it fits all
of you better."
Kit
laughed then. "Maybe so. Well, are you ready?"
"I
think so."
"Good,
come on." Kit led the way down the
steps. "We're going to head out
into the woods. Watch me carefully. We're going to have to get past Alex's
little surprises again."
Blair
nodded and followed him. For several
minutes, neither of them spoke. Kit
pointed out Alex's traps as they came upon them, but no words passed between
them. Finally, the silence was too much
for Blair. He had questions, and he had
to ask them before he exploded.
"Where are we going exactly, and what are we going to do once we
get there?"
"We
are going to get in touch with Mother Earth, and then you are going to listen
to what she has to tell you."
"Oooo-kay."
Kit
grinned at his skepticism. "You'll
see. I'm pretty sure you have done this
before. Probably all your life as a
matter of fact, but you didn't know you were doing it and didn't understand the
messages."
"You
really do think that I'm a shaman?"
Blair shook his head. "I
don't think so. I mean, Incacha said he
passed the way of the shaman to me, but I don't feel it. And Jim's the one with the visions. I've had all of one vision, and I had to die
to have it."
Kit
was chuckling softly. Blair was not
amused, but he did not say anything. He
waited to a response.
"Blair,
I know you're a shaman. And nobody had
to pass it to you. You were born this
way. Okay, granted, some people can
learn to touch the spiritual, but there has to be something inside that makes
them receptive to it first. And you are
much more than just receptive to it, Blair.
There's power in you. I can feel
it. I imagine this Incacha could
too. Let me guess, native guy, red face
paint?" Kit stopped walking and
turned to face him.
"How'd
you know that?"
"I
saw him. Led me to you. Anyway, my granddad has a theory about all
this. He says that people born with the
gift never fully let go of the spirit world when they are born into this
one. So they always walk a line between
the physical world and the spirit paths, only having to step to one side or the
other to walk in either. You are one of
those people. Some people live their
whole lives not understanding their natures and therefore never experience
their own power. Some people recognize
it and learn to use it. And some people
use their power instinctively without ever learning to direct it or even having
knowledge of it. That's you, I think. I was born with it, but I had to learn to
use it. I think you're going to have a
much easier time of it than I did.
Truth be told, I didn't want it, and I resisted it for years. Now you, well, given the fact that you have
walked in the spirit world, all you have to do is understand and accept."
"You
mean, dying, right? When I died at the
fountain?"
"Yeah,
you walked in the spirit world and came back.
At some point, we all go through a rebirth. For some of us, it's ritual, spiritual, whatever. For you, it was an actual physical death and
rebirth. That's powerful, Blair."
"Understand
and accept, huh? Why do I have a
feeling that that's going to be easier said than done?" Blair frowned.
"That's
up to you. If you resist, it'll be
hard. If you let go, it'll happen
before you know it. This looks like a
good spot." He gestured around
them at the small clearing that Blair only noticed with the gesture.
"What
now?"
"Lie
down."
"Excuse
me?"
"Lie
down. Contact with the Earth will
help."
"On
the ground?"
"Uh,
unless you can levitate, I think the ground is your only option and levitation
would sort of defeat the purpose too."
Blair
glared at him, but Kit only smirked in return.
Finally, after determining that he was not going to get out of it, he
sat down and lay back. The ground was
cold, and it quickly sapped the warmth from his body.
"Close
your eyes," Kit ordered. Blair
complied. "Now, shut out
everything but my voice and the wind.
Just listen to me and the wind."
"What
about the birds?"
"No,
shut them out. Make them fade
away."
"You
sound like me talking to…" The
smile faded to a frown and Blair could not finish the sentence.
Kit
ignored him and went on. "In a
minute, I'm going to stop talking. When
I do, you can slowly add the birds and any other sounds you can hear,
acknowledge them as life, as living, then slowly turn your focus inward and
hear your own body as it works, feel the life there. Then focus down, below you, into the Earth. Feel her, hear her and you'll
understand."
Kit
said nothing more so Blair stopped listening for him and tried to do what he
said. As he attempted to accomplish his
task, he began to understand why it was so hard for Jim to control his
senses. He could not seem to get his
ears to cooperate. At first, everything
was too loud and nearly broke his concentration. Then when he tried to lower the volume, he lost too much. He was getting frustrated. He meditated all the time, for heaven's
sake. Why was it so hard all of a
sudden? Finally, he thought he had just
right, everything in the right proportion.
It was not that different than what he had done on Alex's porch after
all.
"Stop
thinking. Just feel and hear."
Kit's voice nearly scared him into a heart attack.
He
was right though. Blair's mind was
working too hard. It was distracting
him. That was why it had been so
difficult to achieve the meditative state he needed. He was still doing it, too!
He sighed. He tossed out the
distracting thoughts and finally sank down into the meditation.
Kit
watched the lines on his student's forehead smooth out and smiled to
himself. Now, he was getting somewhere. Several minutes passed as Blair's breathing
slowed and his body lost all its tension, slowing molding to the ground beneath
it. Kit wondered if Blair would have
the same reaction he did when he had finally gotten this right. Kit had nearly jumped out of his skin, and
his grandfather had laughed his ass off at him. He had been a little pissed at the old man at first, but later it
was funny. And it would be funny now if
Blair reacted that way. He ordered
himself not to laugh, however. He did not
want to make Blair angry with him.
After all, they didn't have the bond of family to make forgiveness
easy. Or rather, easier.
He
sat down a few feet away and waited for Blair to either fail or succeed. He hoped he would succeed, but Kit himself
had had to try this several times before he finally got it. In fact, by the time he manage to complete
this one simple exercise, he was ready to tell his grandfather that he was
nuts.
He
was so deep in thought that he jumped when Blair did.
"Holy
shit!" Blair was on his feet suddenly and staring down at the ground with
a look of horrified incredulousness on his face. "Ah, man!" His
whole body shivered.
All
Kit's good intentions went right out the window, and he burst into laughter.
Blair
spun around to glare at him. "Not
funny, man! So not funny! You could have warned me."
Kit
tried to straighten his face, but it was a lost cause. "I couldn't tell you what to
expect. If you're expecting it, you'll
convince yourself that you feel it when you don't." He was still chuckling.
"I
am so glad that I could provide you with your morning entertainment, man!"
Kit
got up. "Blair, I'm
sorry." He walked over and took
Blair by the shoulders. "Don't
worry about it. I did the same
thing."
Blair
sighed in exasperation and tried to pull away, but Kit would not let him.
"I'm
serious!" Kit assured him.
"And what's more you did it a hell of lot faster than I did! I had to try four times before I
succeeded."
"Really?"
"Yes,
really. Now, tell me, what was it like?" Kit let him go and stepped back to watch and
listen.
"It
was wild. Fantastic, but scary as hell
too."
"Go
ahead," he coaxed.
"The
ground wasn't cold anymore. It was
warm, and it felt like it was holding me.
Not me lying on it, but like being held gently like a baby with its
mother."
"Yeah,
just like that." Kit remembered the feeling.
"And
it breathed and I could hear—it's crazy."
"You
could hear a heartbeat." It was
not a question. Kit knew; he remembered
that too.
"Yeah. The wolf was there and then he was me or I
was him. Both maybe. I let him in and I felt so safe. Loved."
"Then
you understand. We are all children of
the Earth, but you have a connection to the Mother that most people don't
have. You have always had it but didn't
feel it consciously. Unconsciously, I
think you did. Now you're conscious of
it, aren't you? You can feel it."
"I
do. I really do."
"What
do you feel?"
"A
need to help, to heal, to teach. I do
feel somehow connected to something bigger."
"Exactly.
And, like I said, you've always had
it. You're just acknowledging it
now."
"I
want to learn more." Blair was
wide-eyed and looking almost feverish.
Kit
laughed. "I think you had better
assimilate this first. Come on, let's
go find Alex. Work with him for a while
and when you don't look shell-shocked anymore, we'll try something else."
"Kit,
shell-shocked probably wasn't the best phrasing there."
"Good
point. Sorry. Just remember.
Relax. You get all tense and
jittery, you'll shoot your own foot or something, and Alex will laugh the whole
time he's kicking your ass for it."
"Gee,
that's comforting."
Kit
threw an arm over Blair's shoulder.
"I speak from experience, my friend. Only I shot him."
"You're
kidding!"
Kit
released him and started walking. Blair
followed.
"Nope,
just barely grazed his arm. You should
have seen the look on his face! Of
course, at the time, I imagine my own face was much worse. I was horrified. I was trying to apologize, beg forgiveness, and get the hell out
of Dodge, and he was stalking me like some pissed off badger. Then he just pounced on me. He knocked me down and kicked me in the ass,
flipped me over and then just burst out laughing. I think I must have been yelling, but I couldn't tell you what I
might have said. Anyway, Pete ran up
and checked on Alex who was shooing him off, saying that he was fine. So then, Alex helped me up and even brushed
me off. I was still babbling about how
sorry I was and Alex just looked at me with those eyes—you've seen those eyes,
right?—And said, 'Get back over there, you little bastard. And this time try hitting the fucking
target, not your fucking teacher.' And
that was it. Pete slapped a bandage on
him and we continued. To this day, he
looks at me sometimes and says, 'you little bastard.' We laugh and go on."
"You're
all crazy."
Kit
could not help but agree with that assessment.
"I know," he admitted.
"Welcome to the funny farm."
Pete
frowned as he pulled his rental car into the convenience store parking lot. He had to get moving on some sort of plan,
and he could not do that if he was completely cut off from civilization. He pulled out his cell and turned it on. The "no service" message blinked
at him. He turned it off. It was worth a try. He got out of the car and made his way over
to the pay phone on the corner of little brick building. He dug his calling card out of his pocket
then thought better of it. Chad would
just have to deal with the collect call until Pete got this mess straightened
out and could pay him back. Jim would
have to deal with it too.
He
dialed Chad's number first, said his name at the appropriate time and
waited. But it was a machine that
answered Chad's phone. He swore and
hung up. He tried Chad's office
next. Voicemail. He had to hang up again. Jim was next. He wanted to let the man know that Blair was safe. He dialed and jumped through the hoops, but
when the machine at Jim's place picked up, it was not Jim's voice he
heard. He struggled to listen over the
recording that was announcing his call and realized that he was hearing Robert
Rose's voice. He could not make out
what the man was saying.
"Fuck!" He slammed the
phone down and dug out the calling card again.
It was a risk, but apparently they were in trouble already. Rose had Jim. He dialed again, this time charging his card.
"Mr.
Sandburg," the voice on the machine said, the tone patronizing, "if
you are interested in seeing Jim Ellison ever again, you'll need to make
arrangements to meet me. The details of
how to reach me are here in Jim's home.
I do hope to hear from you soon."
"Son
of a bitch!" He dropped the
receiver and ran both hands over his face and through his hair. "Okay, he never left the general area. Couldn't have. Okay. Okay." Pete's mind was racing. He hung up the phone and paced before
it. "What now? Send Kit and Jesse. Yeah.
DON'T tell Blair. Won't
matter. It's not that he'll let Jim go
if Blair shows. No, then he'll have
them both back, just the way he wants.
Can't tell Blair. See if Kit can
find Jim and get him out of there.
Maybe send Alex, too. Tell him
kill 'em all and let Lucifer sort 'em out. Arrgh!" A woman came out of the store then and
stared at him. "My life
sucks," he told her. "Be very
glad you aren't me." The woman
hurried to her car. "Wonderful,
Peter, frighten the locals.
Smart." He sighed. "So much for clever
planning." He needed to call Simon
Banks. If the man did not know already,
he needed to be told.
Simon
stared at Jim's empty desk. Jim was
late. It was not that Simon was exactly
in a hurry to share his information with Jim.
He was dreading it in fact, but it was not like Jim to be late either. At least, not without calling. Reluctantly, he picked up the phone and
called the loft. He heard the click of
the answering machine and was about to hang up when he realized that the voice
reaching his ear did not belong to Jim or Blair. He listened to the message and hung up the phone slowly. He sat there in shock for a split second
before his training and his temper kicked in.
"Joel!" he yelled as he stood, flinging his chair back from
the desk to smack the wall behind it.
"You're with me! Henri, put
out an APB on Jim. Rafe, call
Forensics, tell them to meet me at Jim's!"
He
heard the chorus of exclamations but did not stop to address them. They would figure it out. Joel was behind him as he exited the
bullpen.
An
hour later, Forensics had nothing, and Simon was staring at the phone number he
found inside an envelope addressed to Blair.
He reached for his cell phone only to have it ring just as he touched
it. "Banks," he snapped.
"Captain
Banks. Thank God. Do you know how long it took me to track you
down? I've been standing here freezing
my ass off for over an hour."
"Devereaux? That you?"
"Yes. Listen, are you aware that Jim—"
"Has
been kidnapped? Yeah, I'm standing in
his loft right now. Where are you? Where is Blair? What the hell is going on?
Did you know your office blew up?"
"My
office blew up? Great. Peachy.
I'm not surprised really. We're
all fine. I know who's behind all
this. Did Jim tell you?"
"I
haven't talked to Jim. What is going
on, damn it!?"
"The
Freedom Coalition. George Baker."
"Oh,
Lord! Baker is a sociopath!"
"Yeah,
I know. Listen, I'm going to send Kit
and Jesse out there to help you."
"What?"
"I
don't think Rose ever left the area.
I'm thinking he might have crossed the border into Canada or headed down
the coast, but he has to be pretty close, right?"
"Makes
sense, I suppose."
"I'm
going to see if Jesse can come up with some possible locations and he and Kit
may be able to go in and get Jim out.
What do you think?"
"I
think you're nuts!"
"Well,
I'm not handing Blair over to him, and I'm not letting Blair hand himself over,
so that's my next best idea."
"No,
you listen to me, Devereaux. I can go
along with Jesse giving us some possible locations, but then it becomes a
police matter."
"Right. And the police have so successful so far
dealing with Baker. Captain Banks, we are
going to have to kill this guy to get him off our backs."
"Devereaux,
let the law handle it."
"I
don't think I can do that." The
line disconnected.
"Damn
it!" Simon hung up his own phone.
He looked at the number in his hand again. He would call from the station where they could set up to trace
the call. He doubted it would
work. Rose would be expecting that and
would take precautions, but it was worth a try. It was his only option at the moment. What he would say to Rose, he did not know. He could not give the man Blair and would
not if he could. He was with Devereaux
on that at least.
Alex
shook his head. "Blair, it's not
going to bite you."
A
grimace was the only response. Alex
reached out to his pupil. "Here,
give it to me." The gun was shoved
at him. "Watch," he
ordered. He tossed the weapon from one
hand to the other, spun it on one finger, even pointed it at his own chest. "The gun itself is harmless. The safety is on; no bullet is chambered.
You are safe. I am safe. The gun is not a danger to either of us
right now. Now take it." Blair hesitated then reached out. Alex still had it pointed toward himself,
and he saw the fear in Blair's eyes.
"Stop," he said before the other man could touch the gun. "It's not a snake. It's a pen.
It's a book you want to read.
It's an artifact that you want to examine. It's your girlfriend's—well, maybe we don't need to go
there. Get the idea?"
Blair
nodded.
"Now,
take it."
This
time the hesitation was nearly imperceptible, but the grip on the gun was still
tentative. Alex smiled
indulgently. "Better, but not
quite there yet."
"I'm
trying."
"I
know. That wasn't criticism. Give it back. Let me show you something else." He had not finished the sentence before he had the gun back. "Problem number two. You have no control. Know why?"
Blair
shook his head.
"Because
you aren't holding the gun. Rather you
are letting it lay in your hand. You
have to hold it. You are its control. Not vice-versa. Take control or you will do what you most dread. You'll hurt or kill someone with it for lack
of control." He gripped the gun in
his hand, turned quickly, flicking off the safety and chambering a round as he
did, and fired at the target. The
bullet hit dead center.
The
astonished look on Blair's face was laughable.
"I think you may be better than Jim."
"Thank
you. Point is, I have control of the
gun. I'm not going to fire wild. I'm not going to let it fire before I'm
ready and I'm not going to drop it."
"Then
you have one up on Jim already!" Blair laughed. "I swear, the man can not seem to hold on to his gun! How he survived the Rangers, covert-ops, and
all these years as a cop is beyond me."
Suddenly, he seemed to realize what he was saying. His smile died, and he lowered his eyes.
Alex
touched his shoulder. "It's okay
to remember that he was your friend, you know?"
"Yeah."
He
said nothing else, so Alex continued.
"Anyway, take the gun and let me show you how to hold the thing
properly so that even if Jim drops his gun, you can back him up."
"I'm
not going back there." The
statement was quick and sharp.
"Okay,
so even if Kit drops—no, wait, I taught him.
He'd better not drop his damn gun.
Okay, if Jesse drops his gun, you can back him up. Pete taught Jess, so it's a
possibility." Alex grinned.
Blair
smiled as he took the gun from Alex's hand.
Alex carefully positioned his hand around the gun. "Now, grip it tight." He physically turned Blair to face the
target. "Use your other arm to
steady it right now. You're not ready
for one arm shooting yet. Focus on the
target." He gave the younger man
time to do as he asked.
"Fire."
Blair's
eyes closed; the gun fired. Blair
jumped and the bullet hit the dirt several yards in front of the target.
"Well,
that won't do, will it?" Alex
tried to keep a straight face.
Blair
frowned. "Sorry."
"Problem
number one—"
"We're
on three."
"Okay,
problem number three, you can't close your eyes, you can't jump, you can't
lower your arm."
"That's
three, four, and five."
"Not
really. They are all related
actually. When you can't see, your
hearing gets bumped up a notch, making the sound of the gun seem louder and you
jump. The jump affects your aim. You have a tendency to drop or raise your
arm. See? All related. Oh, and by
the way, I tricked you. You took the
gun with the safety off and a round chambered, and yet we are both still
alive. Now, if I have to, I'll get some
toothpicks and prop your eyelids open, but that will be very painful. Also, get used to the noise. Accept that it's going to be loud. Expect it, and accept it, and it won't be
nearly as scary. Hold the gun steady. Remember, you move and the gun moves. Got it?"
"Yeah."
"Try
again."
Blair
sighed, and Alex felt like a tyrant.
Blair Sandburg was hating every minute of this. Of course, that was as much good as
bad. Kit had been too cocky to begin
with, until his little mishap, the scar from which still graced Alex's
shoulder. Caution was good. Fear was not. Blair was still afraid. If
Alex could get him beyond fear, he could teach him the skill. If not, Blair would never belong in the
agency.
"Eyes
open," Alex reminded. "It's
going to be loud. Tell yourself that
and get ready to hear it. When you're
ready, fire."
Alex
watched him swallow and heard him mutter, "Eyes open, gonna be
loud." He fired. He still missed, the shot going wide to the
right and striking a nearby tree.
"Now what'd I do wrong?"
"Turned
your head away, and the gun went with your head."
"Damn
it!"
"Let's
try again."
"It
won't work! I've been trying for a
month at the Academy. I never got it
right there, and I won't get it right now."
"Not
with that attitude. Besides, your
Academy teacher was not me. Are you
insulting my abilities?"
"No!" It was the response Alex wanted.
"All
right then. Let's try again."
Blair
turned back to face the target and raised the weapon again. "Eyes open, gonna be loud, don't turn
your stupid head," he mumbled this time, and Alex smiled at the
determination on his face. But a little
help might not be a bad idea.
Alex
discreetly moved behind him and placed his hands gently on either side of
Blair's head. "Now fire."
He
did. Center, just an inch above the
hole left by Alex's shot.
"I
did it." The tone was a mixture of
fear and happiness. Still more fear
than happiness, however, and Alex figured he had had enough for the day.
"Yes,
you did. Safety on."
Blair
quickly complied.
"Hand
it over. That's it for today."
"That's
all?" Blair relinquished the gun rather than throwing it into Alex's
hands. More progress.
"Yes. Let this sink in. Your mind will work on it, and we can try again tomorrow."
"Pretty
bad, huh?"
"Oh,
I don't know." Alex removed the
clip from the gun and ejected the bullet from the chamber. "You didn't shoot yourself. You didn't shoot me. You hit the target once. You did better than Kit."
To
Alex's surprise, Blair burst into laughter.
"Well, from what he told me, I couldn't have done much worse!"
"Told
you, did he? The little bastard." Alex laughed. "Lucky for him, I don’t hold grudges. Well, not very often anyway."
"Still
working on forgiveness," Blair said absently.
"Yeah. Sometimes, it's easy. Sometimes, it's hard. And sometimes, just sometimes, it's
impossible. Kit was easy. Where does Jim fall?"
"I
don't know yet."
"Well,
as Jesse says, been there, done that."
Alex put his arm around Blair's shoulders even as he hoped that Blair
would not ask for the explanation that he was not sure he was ready to give. But Blair did not ask. He wanted to, Alex could see that, but he
did not and Alex was grateful.
"Let's get back to the cabin.
Pete should be back soon."
Pete
was already back when Alex and Blair got back to the cabin. As they entered the cabin, all conversation
stopped, and Blair was instantly suspicious.
"What's going on?" he demanded from the three men sitting in
the living room.
"Nothing." Pete smiled. It was a fake smile, the one that Blair already knew was Pete's
"I'm up to something but I'm not going to tell you what under pain of
death" smile. "I'm going to
be sending Kit and Jesse to do some research.
Gotta get us a plan together, you know." Pete glanced at Alex and silent messages were sent. It was all Blair could do not to scream at
all of them.
"Look,
I'm not stupid," he said calmly.
"What is it?"
"I'm
just trying to find out where Rose could be.
That's all. Jesse and Kit are
going to be doing some reconnaissance.
When we have something concrete, Blair, you'll be the first to
know. I swear."
"I
know you're lying to me."
"No,
we're not." Kit assured him.
"Then
I'm not getting the whole truth. Don't
tell me that I am."
"Blair,
please, try to trust me for a little longer here." Pete held out one hand in entreaty.
Kit
and Jesse got up and left the room.
Blair looked at Pete for a moment longer and then followed them. He entered the bedroom that the two had been
sharing and found them packing.
"Kit, I just have one question."
"What?"
His friend did not look at him. He just
continued to pack.
"Can
I find the truth on the spirit paths?"
Kit
sighed. "You'll always find truth
on the spirit paths, Blair."
"Then
how do I get there?"
Kit
looked at him then and gave him a sad smile.
"You already know how, Blair.
You've been there before. You
can go again. You just have to be open
and believe that you can. And remember
how to listen."
"That
easy?"
"Oh
yeah. For you, yeah. You're strong, Blair."
"Hey,
Blair, don't worry about anything.
We'll take care of it.
Everything's going to be fine," Jesse spoke up.
"It
would help if I knew what you were going to take care of."
"We're
going to take care of Baker and Rose and Barnes," Kit told him. He shouldered his bag.
"Well,
don't forget to take of yourselves while you're at it."
"Sure,
Buddy! That's a given." Jesse grinned at him as he closed up his gym
bag. The two men passed by him and
Blair let them go.
"I
told them to just find the bastards.
Not to go after Jim until you and I get there. Though I did tell Kit if they found a location to go in if
necessary to make sure Jim was there," Pete told Alex when they were left
alone in the living room.
Alex
nodded, reaching up to take his antique pistol off the mantel over the
fireplace.
"We
have to take them out. That's all there
is to it, because Baker will keep coming, and he's got the connections to fuck
us." Pete shook his head.
"Pete,
you kill this Baker and someone in his organization will just take his
place. We can't kill them all. We'll probably never even find the vast
majority of them. No, think about
this. Men like Baker have people behind
them just waiting for the opportunity to step into his shoes. He might have even designated someone. That person will have all Baker's money and
connections at his disposal, and we will right back where we started."
"Jesus,
you're right." Pete sighed and leaned back into the comfortable couch.
"However,
I think I have a solution which will be satisfactory and maybe even get us
paid." Alex grinned at him.
"We
have to work with the cops.
Right?"
"If
Baker goes down, his money and assets will be frozen and confiscated. His connections will run for cover. His organization may survive, but not
unscathed and much weakened. And if you
think about it, the Pentagon and the CIA are not really very happy about being
screwed over by Rose, am I correct?"
"Yes,
you are. I see where you're going. Man, you gotta love outsourcing! We offer to represent their interests in
capturing Rose and Baker, and they pay us to rid ourselves of this thorn. Oh, that's devious. Why didn't I think of that?"
"Emotional
involvement. I don't know what happened
with Baker and Kit, but you are as pissed about it as he is."
"It
was just bigotry, Alex. I don't
know. I've worked for that man before
and before Kit came along, I figured it was not my problem if Baker was a
jackass. His money spent. But he was so hateful to Kit." Alex saw shame in his boss's face. "Mostly, I guess I'm pissed at myself
for ever taking the bastard's money when I knew what his agenda was. And Kit, let's just say I have never seen
him so mad. It's funny. I've seen him ignore so much shit, but he
was not willing to let Baker slide."
"Perhaps
because Baker is more than just a few insults.
Words don't hurt, but when someone has the sticks and stones and, in
this case, the organization to go beyond words, he can no longer be ignored. Or it could be the fact that he was in your
office. It would have pissed me off to
find someone who hated me for no good reason cozying up to you in your
office. Probably a little of both of
those."
"Good
points. Okay. I'm going to go down to civilization and put this plan of yours
into motion. Even if we can't get the
Pentagon or the CIA to pay us, we can get Chad and his office on board. I'll call Banks, too and let him know that
we're going to play this legal. Or
mostly legal. He'll be happy. You stay here with Blair. See if you can calm him down or at least let
him take out his frustrations on a target or something."
Alex
saluted him. "Be careful going
out," he warned.
"Of
course. Do I look stupid to you?"
Alex
opened his mouth to answer that.
"Don't!"
Pete shook a finger at him.
Alex
laughed as Pete walked out the door.
"Now, to find Blair," he muttered as the front door of the
cabin closed.
Jim
glared at Robert Rose as the man paced the small confines of Jim's prison. Jim sat on his bunk and waited.
"So,
Jim, how have you been?"
"Lousy,
thanks to you. How about you?"
"Lousy,
thanks to you and Sandburg and your interfering friends. See, Jim, I have a problem. I can't seem to get through to Alex
Barnes. I have a feeling that only
Blair could, but I don't have Blair.
Given that, my employer decided that I should acquire you, in the hopes
that Blair would offer himself to save you.
But you and I both know that that is unlikely. He left, and he's not been back in touch. He probably won't even know that you're
gone. Unless Banks can find him. Still, in the meantime, my employer wants a
sentinel and if Barnes can't be that sentinel, then we will then look to you to
fill that want."
"Your
employer? What? You don't want me to know who your employer
is? That why you won't just say
it? Well, I already know. George Baker is well known to me. I'm a cop after all."
"I
see. Very well. No more tiptoeing around this then. You know Baker, and you know what he's
capable of. You and I could be in
serious jeopardy if you don't cooperate.
I know you don't care what happens to me, but I'm betting that you'd
like to live a little longer."
"You're
right about that, but there's just one flaw in your logic. Rose, I told you, I can't do it
anymore. I'm not a sentinel
anymore. The senses are gone."
Rose
lowered his head for a moment then looked at him again. "Well then, you'll probably die
soon. But not before you provide the
bait and the motivation for Blair."
"You
said it yourself, he probably won't even know that I'm gone. Besides, he won't come for me. Not after what I did. And I suppose the extra bed here is for
him." He pointed up to the top
bunk above him. "You do get him
and put him in here with me, he's liable to strangle me in my sleep."
"That
may well be, but nonetheless, we'll find him, eventually. And I think you're wrong. He would come for you. Then I doubt he could watch you die, anymore
than he could kill you himself. Once we
have him, he won't let you die in front of him. He's too compassionate for that.
He'll help us in exchange for your life."
There
was too much truth in Rose's words. It
was all too likely a possibility. Blair
might hate him, but his compassion would not allow Jim's death. "Shit," he muttered.
"Yes,
well, we are in it, aren't we, Jim?"
"You're
scared, aren't you?"
"Mr.
Baker doesn't like failure. Thus far, I
have had little success. If you could
see your way clear to work with me, I might be able to keep you alive."
"And
you? You're trying to keep yourself
alive too, Rose. I can see it in your
eyes."
Rose
did not respond verbally, but he did not have to.
"I
wish I could help you out, but I can't.
I know you think I'm lying, but I'm not. No more Sentinel here."
Rose
nodded and walked out of the room, locking the door after himself, leaving Jim
alone and, amazingly, more miserable than before. He leaned back on the lower bunk bed and punched the mattress and
springs above him.
They
were armed with just a phone number and Jesse's laptop, but Kit knew that Jess
had pulled off miracles with less.
Their first order of business was to get to somewhere actually in the 21st
century enough to have a cyber café. If
they were traced, it would make no difference.
They would be long gone before anyone could get to them. From there, Jess would find the origin of
that call. If anybody could, Jesse
could.
In
the meantime, Kit worried. He could not
lie to Blair, but he could not tell him the truth either. So instead, when
Blair asked the right question, Kit had given him all he needed to find what
they were hiding from him. He would
know about Ellison and soon. Alex and
Pete could probably handle the fallout.
Still, it was an uncomfortable situation. Pete, never a believer, would not buy that Blair had found the
answers for himself. He would think Kit
told against his orders. Maybe
technically, he had. He could not dwell
on it, however. He had to focus now on
finding Ellison. He personally did not
care for the man, but Pete did and so did Blair, though he was not ready to
admit that yet. As much as he thought
it was a bad idea, Kit found himself willing to orchestrate a reunion between
Ellison and Blair. For Blair. Never for Ellison. But for Blair, shaman to shaman, Kit would do what he had to do.
Alex
folded his lanky body to the ground not far from his new friend. Blair was deep in meditation and Alex, used
to the sight from working with Kit, did not want to interfere. He would stay close though, just in case
Blair wanted to talk when he was finished.
Alex sighed. What a mess. Pete did not want Blair to know that Ellison
had been taken. At least not yet, but
if he asked, Alex would have to tell him the truth. He had always been honest with those he considered friends, and
he liked the young man before him quite a bit.
He
even liked Jim Ellison, despite the man's reaction to him. He could understand the reaction after
all. Once he had been like
Ellison. All black and white and
two-dimensional. It was a dangerous way
to see the world, but it was not all bad either. In fact, it tended to be surprisingly more pleasant than seeing
the whole picture. Made things easy,
cut and dried, all or nothing, right or wrong.
The gray shadows were scary and confusing sometimes. Forewarned was forearmed, however, and Alex
grew to appreciate the shadows and shades.
Nothing surprised him anymore.
He liked it that way. He
wondered if Jim Ellison would ever grow to accept the things he did not want to
see. Alex had read his jacket. He knew Ellison could see the shadows if he
wanted to. The man could not have
survived some of the shit he had found himself in if he had not learned to see
past the glossy surface of life. For
some reason, Ellison chose not to see.
Self-preservation probably. Alex
could imagine that with his odd abilities marking him as different, Ellison
would try to hold on with both hands to normalcy in other aspects of his
life. Otherwise, it would be easy to
lose one's sanity. Alex could attest to
that. But he could also attest to that
fact that ignoring reality only brought more trouble. Acceptance and adaptation was better. It certainly would have helped both Blair and Ellison avoid this
situation.
Alex
sighed and shook his head. And Ellison
was not the only one in that partnership with avoidance issues. Blair had his own. Blair's very presence here was avoidance. The young man would eventually have to deal
with his demons where Ellison was concerned or he would self-destruct.
Blair
followed the wolf to the temple. He
stood on the bottom step and looked up into the doorway. Instead of the fear and anger he felt the
last time he was here, he felt safe but somehow restless. The wolf paced and whined, and the feeling
of restlessness grew in the pit of Blair's stomach. The wolf tugged at his hand, and he turned to face it. Gold eyes pleaded with him, and then the
wolf bounded off. Blair had to run to
keep up with it. When it stopped
suddenly, Blair nearly ran past it. The
wolf whined again and walked slowly out into a clearing. Blair followed again and nearly fell to his
knees at the scene before him. A black
jaguar was trapped in a cage trap. The
animal paced frantically. Blair reached
out to it but brought his hand back quickly as a large snake struck at him from
the grass. Movement in the trees beyond
the clearing, behind the cage, drew Blair's attention. He could not see the animals there, but he
could hear them, growling and snarling.
"Jim!" His own voice brought him spiraling out of
the self-induced trance. Alex was
sitting in front of him about ten yards away.
"They have Jim. That's what
Pete wouldn't tell me! Son of a
bitch!"
"I
don’t know how you know that exactly, but I've known Kit long enough to know
that I'm not meant to understand certain things. Yes, Rose has Ellison.
Pete sent Kit and Jesse to try to find out where they're holding him,
and he went to see if we can get some help from the other people who have an
interest in seeing Rose brought down.
Pete was worried that you'd do something stupid like running off and
putting yourself in the line of fire, so to speak. But you aren't going to do that, right? You're going to let us figure out a way to get Jim back and take
these bastards down for good with minimal damage to everyone concerned,
right?"
"Alex—"
"Right?"
Blair
took a deep breath and bit his lip.
"Yeah, right."
"Good. You won't do Jim any good if you aren't
thinking."
Blair
was thinking though. He was thinking
that he should not even care. He was
thinking that Jim brought this whole thing on himself, and that he was crazy
for even feeling responsible. But then
he was thinking about Jim finding him when Lash was going to kill him. And he thought about Jim taking care of him
when the Iceman shot him. And cooking
his breakfast and carrying his backpack for him when he was on crutches after
Quinn shot him. Then there was the
fountain. Jim had brought him back from
the other side. Okay, so things had not
been so great since, but after talking with Pete, Blair knew that a lot of that
was Jim's way of trying to keep Blair out of Rose's radar. Jim did not know that Blair was in Rose's
sights all along. Fear-based responses,
he had written it himself. Jim might be
an idiot, but even an idiot did not deserve what Rose planned to do. Perhaps idiot was too strong a word, now
that he thought about it. Jim was not
stupid; he just did not think clearly when it came to certain things. It was infuriating, but Blair knew that he
had his own blind spots and could be just as infuriating, he supposed. What the hell was he doing? Was he actually talking himself out of being
angry with Jim? No, he was still angry
and he had every right to be, but could he, in all good conscience, turn his
back on Jim when he was in trouble. The
answer to that question was a definite no.
Alex
had been regarding him silently while he worked that out in his head. "We will get him out of this. Okay?"
"Okay." Blair smiled tentatively. "Thanks, Alex."
"Quite
welcome."
"Can
we practice a little?"
"So
you can imagine Pete's face on the target?"
"I
think it would help tremendously, don't you?"
"Oh
yes, been there, done that." Alex
grinned at him.
Blair
was getting impatient. Pete had the
blessing and financial backing of the Pentagon and the CIA, and Jesse had
managed to trace the phone number to a cell phone owned by Millennium
Research's San Francisco facility. Jess
had gotten into the computer system there briefly before the security breach
was discovered but found no records indicating Jim was there. He admitted, though, that he had not had
enough time to go through everything.
San Francisco was their best bet still.
But all that had taken nearly a week to accomplish, and Blair had been
plagued with nightmares about the trapped jaguar every night.
At
any rate, Pete had sent Jess and Kit to San Francisco to check out the research
facility. They were supposed to assess
the security system and watch for Rose or Baker.
Meanwhile,
Blair was going slowly insane.
Actually, he had gotten quite good with a gun. He found that imagining Rose's face on the target made it very
easy indeed to pull the trigger. He had
joked about picturing Pete's face on the target, but it was just that, a
joke. He liked the man, and Pete was
doing all he could to get Jim back safely.
Not to mention all he had done for Blair. Orenda was right; Pete was slick, but he had a good heart down
deep. Way down deep sometimes,
especially when money was concerned, but it seemed that Pete surrounded himself
with others that would bring him back from the edge when he went too far. Pete's joke about hiring himself another
conscience might not have been a joke after all. Still, Pete's determination to keep Blair safely tucked away and
out of the loop was frustrating. He
meant well, much like Jim when he told Blair to stay in the truck, but Blair
was getting very tired of all the well-meaning idiots in his life trying to
shelter him from harm.
Pete
was gone again, and he was left to watch Alex moved serenely around the kitchen
making dinner. How could he be so
calm? "How can you be so
calm?" he finally asked aloud.
"Anxiety
is a waste of energy. It won't make
things move faster, and it's not good for the body or the mind. You should try your meditation."
"No
thanks. Don't like what I've been
finding there lately."
"Maybe
you shouldn't think of it as seeing Ellison trapped, but as seeing him
alive."
Blair
was stunned for a second.
"Yeah. You're right. It does mean he's still alive, doesn't
it?" He was almost happy for a
moment before something occurred to him.
"What if I don't see him alive?
That's always a possibility."
"I
don't know what to tell you there. All
I can say is that I'd rather know for sure than have to wonder, and you have a
way to know for sure."
"Yeah."
"After
dinner though. It's almost
done." Alex turned and grabbed a
paper plate. He shoved it into Blair's hands.
Blair
flipped the plate over and over, mulling over Alex's words. Maybe he could even communicate with Jim
through the vision, let him know that they were not going to leave him
there. He would try.
"Are
you sure this is a good idea?" Jesse asked again as they reached the outer
perimeter fence surrounding the Millennium Research Center.
Kit
threw down the rope he was carrying.
"Well, it's either go in there or go back practically
empty-handed. We could be here days,
even weeks, before we get any clue about what's going on in there. Pete said to go in if I had to, just not to
take anybody on. I'm going in, and I'm coming
out. They'll never know I was
there. Don't worry, this is what I do,
remember? Just get this damn electric
fence turned off and those laser sensors confused for me for a few minutes, and
I'll find something to let us know if we are barking up the right tree."
"And
if you don't?" Jesse set up his laptop and his cell phone on the ground.
"Then
we're screwed. Truthfully, I think he's
in there. It makes sense. This is the closest facility to Cascade and
the phone call came from here. What we
really want to know is if Baker is here and how hard this place will be to
take." Kit pulled his gloves on.
"Ready?"
"Almost."
"Good. Let me know."
"Whoops."
"What?"
"'Violets'
isn't working this time. Think they
figured out how I was getting in."
"Damn
it!"
"Hold
on, got an idea."
"What?"
"Well,
'violets' is a very strange choice for a password, don't you think? Unless it has a meaning. Like part of something. What's the good doc's name?"
"Rose. Roses, violets. Roses are red, violets are blue?
So, what?"
"I'm
trying other words in the rhyme. Blue,
nope. Roses, bingo! Holy shit.
I got Rose's personal files here!"
"Try
to download 'em, but get me in there first."
"I
can do both. Got it. Go!"
Kit
quickly started up the fence, trusting his friend when he said the electricity
was off. He was crawling over the top
when he heard Jesse swear.
"Kit!"
That
was all Jess was able to say before a current of electricity coursed through
Kit's body causing him to let go and topple over the fence. He tried to land straight up, but he was off
balance and stunned. He felt his ankle
give way, heard the bones break. His
head impacted with the ground seconds later.
He was only partially aware of the alarms going off as his body tripped
the laser sensors. He could hear Jesse
yelling at him, but he sounded miles away.
Kit managed to turn his head at look at his frantic partner. "Go." He had meant to yell, but it did not come out that way. But apparently Jess had heard him anyway.
"No
way. I'm not leaving you. I can get back in and you can climb back
over before somebody comes. I'm almost
there." Jesse's fingers were flying
over his keyboard.
"No. You need to go. I can't climb over, Jess.
I broke something. Get out of
here. Get Pete."
"I'm
not leaving you!"
"You
have to!" That came out
louder. "Go! Damn it, Jess! Please!"
Jesse
looked beyond him, and Kit knew that someone was coming.
"Kit!"
"Jesse,
please."
"I'm
sorry."
Then
Jesse was gone, and Kit let darkness take him.
"Alex! They got Kit! Oh man! They got
Kit!"
Alex
grabbed Blair as the younger man came rushing out of the bedroom. "Wait.
Slow down. Rose caught Kit? Nobody catches Kit. You saw this?"
Blair
nodded. "He's hurt. I saw him as the mountain lion and his foot
was caught in a trap. What are we going
to do?"
The
front door of the cabin flew open and Pete stormed in. "We have problems!"
"Kit's
hurt and Rose has got him," Alex announced.
"How
did you know that?"
Alex
pointed at Blair.
"You're
going weird on me like Kit, right?" Pete asked.
"I
saw it," Blair told him.
"Whatever. Alex, I want the place leveled."
"We'll
still have to work with the law on this, Pete."
"I
know, I know. I don't like it, but I
know. Chad's working on getting us some
help out there. He's going to try to
come himself too."
"Okay. I'll need more information and a few
days."
"Jess
is sending us the info and how many is a few?"
"I'll
know when I get the information. I'd
say at least three or four."
"Make
it three."
"Pete,
calm down." Alex knew he was
wasting his breath but he had to try.
"Alex,
George Baker has Kit. George 'all mud
people must die' Baker has Kit. He
could be dead already." Pete
slumped down on the couch.
"He's
alive," Blair spoke up.
"Even
if I bought into this vision stuff and believed that, things can change pretty
damn quick."
"Maybe
Ellison can help him," Alex offered.
Pete
laughed bitterly. "They hate each
other, Alex."
"Jim
would still help, if he could. But he's
not in the best position himself."
Blair's voice trailed off as he reached the end of his sentence.
"Let's
just get moving here, okay?" Pete
was up again and pacing.
"Where
is Jess?" Alex asked.
"On
his way to his folks' in L.A. He'll be
safe until we get there."
"Good. Blair, help me get some things out of the
basement?"
"Sure."
"Peter." Alex waited for a response. "Peter!" Pete turned to look at him that time. "Pull yourself together."
Pete
nodded, and Alex led Blair out of the room.
He would need the explosives he had stored at the back of the property,
but that would have to wait until morning.
In the meantime, he could get started on the timers. That equipment was in the basement. He wondered briefly how Blair would react to
the crash course he was about to get on explosives construction but dismissed
the vague worry. If Blair were going to
stay, he would have to be trained on it eventually anyway. And right now, it would be something to
occupy both their minds.
"Looks
like you got a new roomie, Ellison."
Jim squinted at the bright light pouring in from his open door of his
prison. A dark figure filled the
doorway and tossed something on the floor.
Jim sat up and fumbled for the light switch. He found it just in time before the door slammed shut again. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to
the light, and he spent that moment hoping that he would not see Blair on the
floor when he could see properly.
Finally, he could open and focus his eyes without pain, and he
turned. It was not Blair. He was shocked by who it was, though. "Chase," he whispered. He knelt by the younger man and felt for a
pulse. He was relieved to find
one. There was blood in the long black
hair, and Jim had no trouble finding the source. He had either hit his head or been hit in the head very
hard. Jim gently picked him up from the
floor and put him in the lower bunk. He
moved then to the sink and wet a cloth to clean the wound.
A
few minutes later, Jim had cleaned him up as well as he could and put a
makeshift bandage on the wound. He then
moved on to look for other problems. He
grimaced as he found that the left ankle was broken. He looked around for something to make a split. There was nothing short of taking apart
their beds, and he had no tools to do that anyway. He sighed and sat down on the floor beside the bunk.
"Of
all people, it had to be you," he grumbled.
The
door opened then, and Jim jumped to his feet.
He recognized the man that entered with Rose from his picture on his
website. George Baker had finally made
his entrance.
"Well,
well, well, if it isn't my good buddy, Kit Chase. Take him out and kill him."
"You
can't!" Jim protested
quickly. He might not like the guy, but
he could not just let them kill him either.
Besides, they wanted a sentinel, and now they had one if Jim's
suspicions were correct.
"And
why can't I?" Baker grinned at him.
"Rose,
he's a sentinel."
"What?" Rose was interested, but Baker simply
scoffed.
"Why
do you think he was so focused on Blair?
He needed a guide. Think about
it."
"Would
explain how they found the explosives I put in their room. And perhaps his reactions to both Sandburg
and Barnes. You're sure about
this?"
"Pretty
sure."
"Doesn't
matter." Baker stepped forward.
"He's a filthy Indian. I don't
need a sentinel that bad. I want him
dead."
"George! Think this through. If nothing else, we could use his DNA to try
and isolate the gene for enhanced senses."
"You
can do that from blood and tissue samples.
Or so you told me."
"Please,
George, let's discuss this. He is of
more use to us alive. I need a live
sentinel!"
"You
have Ellison!"
Rose
looked at Jim then back at Baker. Here
it was. Rose was about to tell the
truth he had been hiding, and Jim wondered if he had ended his own life in his
attempt save someone else's.
"Ellison
has been having some difficulty with his senses without Sandburg."
"Well,
where's his guide?" Baker pointed at Chase.
"If
Ellison is correct, he was either functioning without a guide until he met
Sandburg, or our other imposter could have been his guide. Somehow I doubt that, however. I think he didn't have a guide until he met
Sandburg."
"So
we would still need the Jew. Why is it
just not possible to get away from that little kike? I cannot ask the ranks of my organization to continue to accept
this mixing of the races. Not even for
a good cause. And if he's not working,
why do we need him?" Baker pointed at Jim.
"Ellison
has been a functioning sentinel the longest period of time. If for no other reason, genetically, we can
still use him."
Jim
listened to all this with a sense of horror like he had never felt before. Genetically, they could use him. Chase was probably condemned to being a
human guinea pig and Jim would be a stud.
But they would be alive, he supposed.
Pete would come for Chase, for both of them actually. Peter Devereaux had done some bad things in
his life, but the man had changed, and he would never leave Jim in Rose's
hands. That was why Chase was here
now. He simply had to hope that Pete
would come soon.